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1. M. 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 




WASHINGTON, 
SCOTT'S 1100. 



FREDERICKSBURG, ii'l 



ADVANCE TO 
GETTYSBURG. 



BY AX OFFICER OF THE ARMY OF THE TOTOMAC. 



Wctp ¥orfe : 

J. R. UUTII, I'KINTKU, A-i P E A I{ L STREET. 
1874. 



61503 
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n fllcmonam 



JOHN WATTS (le PEYSTER, Jr. 



DIED 12th APRIL, 1873, 



'* My son, my eon, 

A father's cyca arc looking on thy grave." 

****** 
**Thro' echoing lands that ring with victory, 

Answering for the living with the dead, 

And give me marble when I ask for bread. 

And give me glory when I ask for thee." 

* # * 

*' Thou knowest why we silent ait, and why our eyes arc dim,— 
Sing us such proud sorrow as we may bear for him." 

*' Reach me the old harp that hangs between the flags he won ; 
I will sing what once I heard beside the grave of such a son.'* 

— *'^4 Heroes Orave,'''' by Sidney Dobell. 

"No further seek his merits to disclose, 
Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode ; 
There they alike in trembling hope repose, 
The bosom of his Father and his God." —Gray's *^ Elef/y.''* 

"And thou wert the meekest man, and the gentlest, that ever sat in hall among 
ladies. And thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put lance 
in rest." —'■'•Elegy of Sir Lancelot,'"— Morte d'Abthxtb. 



The hand that writes these pages does so with the 
reluctance of one who feels that he is an intruder on 
a sorrow so deep and recent, so sacred in its nature, 
that any attempts at consolation in the ordinary sense 
of the term were useless. Only at the urgent request 



2 



of the head of the family to which the subject of this 
brief memoir belonged, and against the writer's own 
wishes, does he attempt the task, feeling sensible, from 
what little he saw himself of the brief and mournful 
young life that ended so sadly, that no words of his 
can heal the wound that God in his wisdom inflicted, 
when the sword pierced the parents' heart, and the 
Angel of Death took their first-born. 

It is not with the hope of consolation, not with the 
purpose of trying to palliate inevitable grief by exciting 
the feeling of pride, that these pages are written. In 
the face of such a sorrow, only one feeling of the 
human heart is possible, the deepest and most sincere 
sympathy ; a sympathy that would take refuge in 
silence if it were permitted. 

Nevertheless, feeling that the task, however difiicult, 
must be done, and praying earnestly that it may be 
done in such a way as to render it a grateful tribute 
of sympathy, I have consented to undertake the pre- 
paration of such a slight sketch of one who has gone 
to his rest, as may serve to remind us of the happiness 
to which he has attained at last. 

"If in this life only we have hope, we are of all 
men the most miserable," said one whose life, after 
the commencement of his mission, was a constant 
succession of trials and suff'erings of body and mind, 
tlie latter aggravated by the former. Of all the gifts 
which have come to us with the Second Dispensation, 
there is one alone which is worth all the rest, the 
revelation of the recompenses of a future life, for trials 



in this. The same Lazarus, who sat at the gate of 
Dives, a painful and touching sijectacle, a poor 
wreck, whose every moment was a torment, whose life 
was one long martyrdom, found rest, peace and happi- 
ness at last, in Abraham's bosom. If there is one 
lesson that comes to us in tlie wliole teaching of the 
Creator of the Universe with more force than another, 
with more consolation to the suffering in heart than all 
the rest, it is that bright revelation of God the Com- 
pensator, of Paradise the Home of Compensation, 
which God ix Man has told us of in every chapter, 
almost every verse, of his recorded teachings. 

It is not my purpose, therefore, in tliese few words 
of sympathy, to enlarge on the brilliant military 
record of one who has left all such things far, far 
behind him. To say that he was brave to excess, is 
but to repeat the testimony of every comrade in arms 
that saw him in action. To recount the names and 
honors that were conferred on him by brevets, for one 
quality of a many-sided character, is but poor con- 
solation to the desolate hearts that yearned over him 
from the cradle to the grave. 

To say that he was handsome in person, brave and 
gentle, a lion among men, a lamb among ladies, may 
be true ; but what balm does the memory of beauty 
and virtue carry with it to those who mourn the loss 
of all that endeared him to them ? In the presence of 
eternity, how paltry are all such honors; in the 
presence of death, what consolation can a labored 
eulogy offer ? It is but to increase the sorrow by the 



memory of wliat lias been lost. In snch a ease, only 
two tilings are \)oss\b\ii—forgetfii,lness, or Hope. 

Which shall be my theme in treating snch a 
sorrow ? 

The waters of Lethe are deadly cold, lit emblems 
of the pagan spirit that dictated the fable. "Is there 
a way to forget to think?" asks the poet, in a dreary 
apostrophe of woe. The qnestion answers itself. 
While the brain holds thought, it must hold memory 
also, and the loss of memory is the loss of reason. 
To us, who live in the brightness of that light to which 
all the wisdom of the ancients only shows as a feeble 
glimmer in the darkness of ignorance, there is a 
sweeter spring than ever lay, still and dark, in the 
pool of Lethe. 

The pleasures of hope are ours, alike for ourselves 
in the shadow of death, and in the memory of those 
who have gone before us on the long journey, from 
which none return, but which all must take. That 
hope it was which dried the tears of tiie warrior 
monarch of Israel, when he reproved his servants 
with the simple words, "I shall go to him, but he 
shall not come to me." 

To me, who came to the record of a sad young life 
almost as a stranger, at first sight the retrospect was 
inexpressibly mournful. In all the records accessible 
to me, there was so much tiiat was a mere recital of 
perpetual suffering, that it seemed to me as if nothing 
that could be said or written on the subject could be 
other than a tearing open of wounds that only time 



could heal. Of any real insight into the inner nattire of 
the man himself, whose life I was investigating, there 
seemed no glimpse possible. His own letters had 
perished ; the letters of others referring to him, so far 
as I conld lind tln'm, were ]iurely in reference to his 
bearing in action, and all of hut <nw tenor— that that 
bearing was faultless, that his courage and coolness 
were remarkable, even abnormal. These letters have 
been repeated already in the public prints, accom- 
panied with the official commendations of such gen 
erals as Hooker and Kearny, names synonymous with 
daring, even rashness. To show that the character for 
utter fearlessness which I have atti-ibuted to the subject 
of this memoir, is strictly in accordance with fact, and 
existed from liis early years, these letters are printed 
in an Appendix herewith. To encumber the body of 
the narrative with such matters, would seem to me to 
be unwise. 

- One anecdote in this connection I cannot refrain 
from giving ; I lieaixl it from the Rev. Dr. Oliver him- 
self: 

"When quite a boy, Watts accompanied his brother 
Frederic, Rev. Mr. Olivei-, (under whose care he tlieu 
was at Altoona, Pa.,) and some others, to visit a coal 
pit somewhere beyond Pittsburg. The party pene- 
trated so deep into the mine, and lingered so long, 
that their lights gave out ; and, in the darkness, such 
as could almost be felt, all the party, and Mr. Oliver, 
except Watts, became flustered or nervous. Watts, 
however, so far from experiencing any sensation of the 



6 

kind, actually seemed to enjoy the situation, as one 
which required a solution, which he would like to 
experience. Finally he suggested, as mules were very 
sagacious animals under such circumstances, that they 
should leave the solution to tiiem. They did so, and 
the mules brought them out. Mr. Oliver wrote to his 
father about Watts' perfect fearlessness on this oc- 
casion." 

It is not to courage, not to honors gained in the 
field, that I trust, to inspire a sentiment of hope, 
mingled with mournful regret, but still sweet in its 
very sadness, but to the far tenderer, nobler side of the 
character of the poor boy who suffered so much, as 
that side has been latterly revealed to me by glimpses, 
partly from a few of his own letters, partly from the 
letters of private friends containing references to his 
character, from a standpoint outside of the mere- 
tricious glare of military events. I saw him alive but 
twice, each time under the most melancholy circum- 
stances ; and tlie memory of those interviews has 
added to the light in which I have come to view his 
character, as a man of much sorrow, now — Heaven be 
thanked — at rest. 

John Watts de Peystek Junior was born in 
New York City on the 2d December, 1841, with every 
apparent prospect of a fortunate and happy life before 
him, a promise that nothing seems to have happened 
to dim, during his childhood. That he was as happy 
as most children is to be hoped, for certainly his after- 
years were full enough of trials. 



The first glimpse that I Isave of the young man, I 
find in a letter to his father, written apparently from 
New York, just about the opening of that terrible 
struggle, known as the Great Rebellion. It is entirely 
on business matters, relating to money ; and j-et, at 
the close comes one little unconscious touch of nature 
which is irrepressibly affecting to me, who remembers 
the face and bearing of the poor lad years afterwards. 
That an ardent love reall}^ existed between father and 
son, I have no doubt. That the Either yearned with 
the strongest affection over his son, is certain. That he 
craved his affection by word and deed, appears from 
the jiassage in the letter referred to, wherein the son 
answers a complaint of the father : 

"You complain of the cold and business-like form 
of my letters. You j^ourself first set the example of 
dropping the language of affection." 

These words are quoted from memory of their 
spirit only ; and yet there was sometliing in them that 
caused the writing to swim before my eyes as I read 
them ; they conveyed to my mind such a sentiment 
of dreariness and desolation. A wall of reserve and 
pride had grown up between two people, both em- 
inently worthy of love, but apparently incapable of 
understanding each other. The language of affection 
had ceased between them, at first, possibly, from mis- 
understanding on the part of the father, offended at 
morbid reticence and exclusiveness of the son ; and 
tile young heart, too proud and sensitive, clothed 
itself in the iron panoply of reticence and reserve — a 



8 

panoply that, like the shirt of Nessus, injures its 
wearer worst of all. 

That this was the case with the subject of our me- 
moir is evident from the constant references in the 
letters of others, to his reticence. When a lad of 
twenty is extraordinary for reserve, it may be taken 
for granted that he is also extraordinarily sensitive. 
Reticence is not natural to j^outh. Happy j-ontli is 
frank as day, headlong in trust, foolish in openness. 
When a silent, reserved lad is seen, there is little 
doubt that such a lad is unhappy. He must be hiding 
his truer nature, from morbid sensitiveness. It may 
be foolish, it is certain to i)rove a cause of misery; but 
he cannot change his nature withoutjielp from others. 
It all depends on his treatment by others, whether he 
conquers his sensitiveness, or whether it conquers 
him. 

The next letters that come before me are from 
Washington. It seems that young de Pej'ster has 
gone to his cousin. General Philip Kearny, the "one- 
armed devil," as the enemy called him, and that the 
latter has allowed him to follow liira as volunteer aid. 
Tiien it also turns out that the youth has found that 
glory is not what he thought it would be, and tliat, in 
consequence of miscarriage of letters, he is short of 
money, has no uniform, is subject to various mortifi- 
cations among a rich and dashing staff, and, in short, 
finds thorns of discomfort under the rose of military 
adventure. 

Still, these are but slight annoyances to one whose 



opening life begins io feel itself at last, and blossom 
forth, unrestrained by criticism, under the light of 
kindness. General Kearnj^ a man of many faults, 
had yet the virtues of a knight, courage and generos- 
ity. To his young kinsman he seems to have been the 
soul of kindness, bringing from the tender-hearted lad 
in his letters home, expressions of the most enthusi- 
astic gratitude. Under his guidance and care, j^oung 
de Peyster seems to have passed his only perfectly 
happy days. The unconscious influence of this happi- 
ness breaks forth in two letters home, directed, "Dear 
Father and Mother," in which the proud, reticent boy 
loses all his nervous sensitiveness, and prattles fool- 
ishly and happily away, like any other frank, light- 
spirited lad, writing home, intoxicated with the joy of 
a first campaign, feeling that he is doing a man's duty 
among men, and doing it worthily. 

Judging from the internal evidence of these few 
letters, I am convinced that, could young de Peyster 
have remained on his kinsman's staff till the death of 
the latter, he would have developed into a splendid 
officer, and probably have been a much happier man. 
In Kearny, whatever the faults of the latter to others, 
his young cousin seems to have found a kind and 
judicious friend, whose influence over him was de- 
cidedly beneficial, mentally, restoring a mind grown 
morbid with self-contemplation, to a tone far more 
healthy and natural. 

Unhappily, this was not to be. Kearny was unable 
to appoint the young man officially on his staff', and 






10 

his first battle — Williamsburg — decided him to send 
him home. As the General very truly said, he had 
no right to allow one to expose himself so freely to 
destruction who had no properly apj^ointed duty to 
be there ; and young de Peyster, without even a 
second lieutenant's commission, seems to have exposed 
himself in such a manner as to deserve the soldiers' 
soubriquet of " Kearny's Dare Devil." To nse 
Kearny's own words, "Watts has done enough for 
grandeur ; he has been shot at enough without being 
regularly commissioned." 

Through the influence of his father, a commission as 
first lieutenant in the 11th New York Cavalry, was 
now obtained for him, and he seems to have proceeded 
to service with his regiment at once, working hard to 
familiarize himself with the various duties of a cavalry 
officer. 

His extreme youth — he was not yet of age — his 
small stature and boyish appearance seem to liave 
been obstacles in his way, which he felt sensibly, and 
when, shortly after, his State offers him a position as 
major in an artillery regiment, he writes to decline 
it, in the last letter of his which has come under my 
notice. In that letter he says that he feels he is not fit 
for the duties of major, being too young, and declines 
the otfer with a simple modestj' that shows well for his 
knowledge of himself. 

Unhappily, he was over-persuaded, and this lad of 
twenty found himself alone once more, in the midst 
of an inimical regiment, with a colonel who seems to 






11 

have looked upon the appointment as an invasion of 
his rights, captains who were jealous of his extreme 
youth, with ev^erj circumstance against him, and 
emphaticall}' — from these causes, not his own want of 
any soldiei-ly attribute — in a false position. 

For a short time this was obviated bj' his being 
detailed on the staff' of General Peck, a good-hearted 
man, and an old regular officei", who put him on 
court martial duty, where he seems to have done 
remarkably well, thanks to an acute mind, and the fact 
of his having once studied law, which he retained. In- 
deed, he won the praise and good-will of every officer 
with whom he associated. 

An attack of James River fever sent him home, and 
he was not able to return to duty till next year, when 
he was appointed Cliief of Artillery to the Second 
Division of the Sixth Corps, and served as such, with 
his usual reckless gallantrj', on the Fredericksburg 
Heights, at the battle of Chancellorsville. At the 
time he was seriously ill, and the exertions he under- 
went at the battle proved his ruin. From that time 
forth — in comparison with the past and its goodly 
promise, his histor3' is almost a blank. 

A few references to him occur in letters written by 
his aunt, and two officers whose home was near his 
own. The former seems to have loved him most 
dearlj-, and to have been especially proud of him in 
those brilliant days when he served on the staff of 
Kearny. Both she and Kearn^^ himself remark on 
the wonderful improvement in the shy, distant, reticent 



12 

lad, by his sudden transition to active life. Kearny 
notices in an early letter this same reticence, which 
he characterizes as especially unfortunate, "horrid, 
horrid!" The warm praise with which he men- 
tions the other qualities of his young kinsman, 
atones, however, for all the discomfort attributable to 
this one failing of reticence. In spite of it all, the 
boy-officer seems to have been a great favorite with 
those who knew him, especially for his generosity 
and quiet, gentle deportment, his kindness of heart 
and unselfishness. 

After the battle of Chancellorsville occurs a long 
hiatus. Young de Peyster seems to have been in 
wretched health, and to have suffered, at times, from 
that disease which afterwards caused him such acute 
misery. Whatever the cause, is hidden in mystery. 
It is probable that he sustained concussion of the 
brain at Chancellorsville from the near explosion of a 
shell or spherical case shot or the wind of a round 
shot, which carried away his cap ; but, whatever it be, 
he does not seem to have been conscious of anything 
in the excitement of the battle. The letter of General 
Owens quoted in the Appendix, will show that his 
position at that battle was one in which few could 
retain their coolness of head, however cool they might 
seem outwardl}^ In the centre of a battery, taken 
and re-taken, with grape and round-shot flying to and 
fro, action seems like a dream of blood, and after it is 
all over, very few men can give a coherent account of 
the incidents of the fray. Some injury, either to the 



13 

brain or nervous system, mnst have been siiffered in 
this battle by the subject of this memoir, for his con- 
duct thereafter seems to have become entirely changed, 
as far as I can ascertain. Moody and erratic, subject 
to strange bursts of ill-temper, and neglecting the 
ordinary rules of health in tlie wildest manner, he 
seems to have speedily sunk into a state of health 
decidedly alarming. 

In a letter to his father from Colonel W , one 

of the officers I have spoken of, comes out the fact 
that the boy-major is in a painful position, with 
enemies around him to magnify every fault, and 
threatened with being called before the examining 
board on the representation of these enemies — a 
menace they did not dare to press, for they knew that 
he could pass any such ordeal — however severe — tri- 
umphantly. 

It was during this time, when nearly out of his 
mind with continued illness and annoyances of all 
kinds, that a fracas occurred between him and his 
temporary commanding officer, in which the latter 
charged him with the lie direct, and the young major, 
driven frantic by the injustice and insult alike, clial- 
lenged his commander. The challenge was refused, 
the young officer put under a close and needlessly 
humiliating arrest, with a sentry at the door. He 
broke the arrest and caned his commanding officer. 
Result, he was dismissed from the service, without 
trial or hearing of any kind, by the arbitrary order 
of the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton. 



14 



Here, it might be thought, had set in night the 
young star tliat once slione so brightly. A brilliant 
record of gallant deeds had been blotted out by the 
hasty act of a moment, an act done in the extremity 
of desperation against injustice. As far as his enemies 
were concerned, they had had their will, and suc- 
ceeded in their plans. 

But, thanks to the kind Providence that watches 
over the nation, a man was then at the head of the 
American State whose verj^ instinct was for justice, 
and who at last was reached, and — listened. The 
result is told so graphically by the Rev. Mr. Oliver, 
who acted as embassador in the affair, that I cannot 
help quoting his words : 

"The officer superior to Watts insulted him; he 
took a cane to him ; the officer preferred chai'ges, and 
Watts was dismissed. General Barry and myself 
went separately to President Lincoln to get him re- 
stored. I never saw the President laiigh as he did 
when he became acquainted with the matter. He put 
his big feet on the table, leaned back, and roared. 
'Come back,' he said, 'in six months, and I will see 
what I can do for you. I have every desire to do all 
I can, in consideration of the Major's services and his 
father's loyalty ; but I dare not at once restore an 
officer who has been dismissed for caning a superior 
officer for using improper language to him ; becaiise, 
if I did, in less than twenty-four hours, one half of 
the officers in the Army of the Potomac would be 
attempting to thrash their superior officers, under 
similar circumstances.' " 






15 



The President's words, as I can bear witness, were 
a truthful commentary on the state of manners among 
a hirge majoritj' of the officers in the Federal Army 
at that period. The custom of duelling has been often 
called a relic of barbarism ; but I cannot help record- 
ing my earnest conviction that its decline in the North 
has been accompanied, in too many instances, by an 
almost entire loss among men of those courtesies of 
life which only prevail at present among the small 
class of people amongst whom the duel is still re- 
tained, spite of law, and spite of the influence of a 
press, teeming with foul epithets, for which no pun- 
ishment save the duel has yet been found an effica- 
cious preventative. 

In the matter in question, in the case of Major de 
Peyster, it is evident that he was the victim of a man 
who sheltered himself from just retribution behind a 
law which recognizes no such thing as delicac}'- in the 
intercourse of gentlemen. And such a dismissal as 
his, in any country, has always been held, by the 
tacit verdict of society, to be no disgrace, in any sense 
of the word. Even the shadow of the latter was sub- 
sequently removed by the complete and triumphant 
reversal of the unjust sentence, and the conferring 
of the brevet of Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel U. S. 
Volunteers, on the reinstated officer, for his gallant 
conduct at Chancellorsville. 

Both justice and honor came too late, for the poor, 
high-spirited lad who had embarked, two short 3'ears 
before, ou a career of hope, which then looked so 



I 



r 



^ 



16 

bright. Illness, mental and. bodily, had attained too 
sure a grasp on him to be shaken off, and he could 
not return to the army. It was but the beginning of 
the end. Henceforth, his life seems to have been a 
gradual going down hill, in pain and weakness, a 
mental disease gradually becoming worse and worse, 
and ever picturing on an over- wrought brain the scene 
of injustice and contumely in which he had been the 
victim. It was under these trying circumstances that 
his parents, well-nigh broken-hearted, found their son 
sent back to them, crushed for life. Everything that 
wealth and affection could do to divert the mind and 
restore the body, was tried in vain. The voj-ages to 
Europe and to China and Japan that were relied on 
so fondly, came too late to save him. Only on one 
occasion did his intellect seem to awaken to its normal 
state, when in the whirl of a typhoon, the almost sink- 
ing vessel in imminent peiil, he became once more 
calm, smiling and rational. It is an evidence of how 
fierce was the turmoil in liis mind when such an ele- 
mental strife was necessary to waken it to external 
objects. All this time his condition of body was one 
of constant pain, partly from a diseased liver, and the 
remnants of old malarial fever. Doubtless, with a 
healthy tone to the system, the mind would have 
recovered its balance. As it was, year followed year, 
aggravating all the symptoms, and finally rendering 
more stringent restraint necessary. 

It was under these unhappy circumstances, and 
within a year of his death, that I first saw the subject 



17 



of this imperfect memoir, calling on him with his 
father, on the latter's invitation. Having only seen, 
before that time, the portrait of the quick, bright, 
vivacious young officer, who had been Kearny's pet, 
I was inexpressibly affected when I saw the melancholy 
wreck, that was all tliat remained of the once dashing 
soldier. 

It was under these circumstances that I formed an 
opinion of his real character, which has only strength- 
ened since I have perused the few remaining scraps of 
his letters now extant. I say "few," because all 
letters to him, also all his own papers, memorials, 
library and collections were utterly consumed with 
the cottage he occupied upon his father's estate in 
June, 1866. Several little circumstances, both at 
that and a subsequent interview, gave me an impres- 
sion that was inexpressibly pathetic. Under all the 
cloud of mental disease, wliich usually brutalizes its 
sufferers, one thing was noticeable in this poor young 
fellow — an intense gentleness and consideration for the 
feelings of others, an intense and innate chivaliy of 
bearing, that se(^med to forget his own painful position 
the instant that the feelings of another were in ques- 
tion. A more delicately courteous person I never met 
among men in the blessed possession of all their 
faculties, and especially did I notice, on a subsequent 
occasion, the habitual reverence which he displayed 
towards old age, unhappily so I'are in our day and 
country. 

It is on these points of his character, as I saw them. 



18 

and on tlie silent, uncomplaining patience with which 
he bore his lot, that I am able to dwell at last, with so 
much pleasure, after the mournful record of suffering 
which I have just closed, gilded only by a brief 
glimpse of the sunlight of ac-tion. In a life which 
had so little of pleasure, so much of misfortune, 
and which ended in such deep and apparently un- 
broken gloom, what is there, what can there be of 
consolation, of lesson, to us who survey it from the 
outside ? 

To me, at least, there is a broad and shining track, 
leading from that bed of suffering to the home of 
compensation. If this j'oung gentleman, with all his 
higher faculties clouded under the veil of diseases 
wliich invariably bring to the surface the baser 
qualities of nature, could impress me, a total stranger, 
with the gentle and considerate courtesy of his man- 
ner, doing the honors of a poor little room with all 
the simple dignity and kindness of a king in a sump- 
tuous palace, what must not have been the charm of 
his nature when in the full possession of himself 1 To 
be a true gentleman, brave, courteous, unselfish, is 
given to few men. To be such, is to imitate the truest 
pattern of a gentlemen that ever walked the earth, the 
pattern sent us from Heaven itself. To be siuih is also 
to court misery, in this world, where selfishness is the 
rule, and unselfishness the exception. Tiiat the sub- 
ject of this memoir must have been to his inmost 
essence one of the type of gentlemen of which Bayard 
was a living exemplar, and of which the essentially 



19 



pathetic life of the misunderstood Kniglit of La Man- 
cha is the ideal, is evidenced to me by one fact. 

I have frequentl}' visited patients who were nnder 
treatment for mental disease, and my experience has 
been uniform in regard to tlieir manners and conver- 
sation. An intense selfishness generally pervades 
them ; an intense desire to ventilate their fancied 
wrongs to any one who will listen to them. Courtesj', 
in its true sense, that of consideration for others, is 
almost unknown to them. 

In the person of tlie gentleman whose life I liave 
attempted to sketch, I recognized an anomaly among 
such cases. He seemed only anxious to make his 
visitor, a stranger, feel at home and at his ease, and 
sought to evade any painful subject witli the refined 
tact of a man of the best society. Of complaint, in a 
position eminently painful, even when encouraged 
thereto in my presence, there was not a solitary 
word ; and, on a subsequent occasion, he exhibited 
such noble, gentle self-command, such gratitude for 
the smallest alleviation of an unhappy lot, that lie 
entirely won my heart. 

Again I say, if sucli was the impressiofi made by 
the nervous invalid, with clouded brain, and higher 
faculties obscured, what must have been the man him- 
self, liad I known him in health ? That gentleness 
and kindness were his normal attributes, that my 
estimate was not mistaken, I have the unconscious tes- 
timony of the only person in the world to wliom the 
shy, reticent boy of former years ever gave his con- 



20 






fidence ; and to those tiualities I turn at last with a 
satisfaction the greater that they alone constitute tlie 
ground of hope for tlie future. 

If Christianity is not all a lie, if the Saviour of Man- 
kind is to be believed, it is in those very qualities of 
kindness, gentleness, patience under suffering, and 
unselfishness, that the only acceptable offering lies, 
under the Dispensation of Love. 

The Author of Life does not say. Blessed are the 
prosperous, the rich, the successful, the men who rise 
to station in life, at whose feet the nations bow, whose 
names are spoken aloud in the streets, and sung in 
the ballads of fame. 

What does He say ? 

Ye who sorrow over a life of pain, listen to the 
words : 

"Blessed are they lliat mourn, for they shall be comforted. 
" Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. 
" Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. 
" Whosoever shall seek to save his life, shall lose it, and whosoever 
shall lose his life shall preserve it." 

The subject of our memoir lost his life for others. 
He was gentle and magnanimous, and his life was one 
of mourning. 

God has compensated him for all at last. 

F. w. 



i: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 704 991 



HOLLINGER 
pH8.5 

MILL RUN F3-1343 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



' 



013 704 991 



HOLLINGER 
pH 8.5 

MILL RUN F3-1543 



